E 458 
.1 

.B853 
Copy 1 



THE NATIONAL NEST-STIRRING. 



E 458 

.1 

.B853 



Copy 1 ^ DISCOURSE OIST THE TIMES 



DELIVERED IN THE 



est ^pntt ^i pnh^ttmx ^Imnlx, 



SABBATH MORNING, MAY 5, 18G1, 



REV. WILLIAM P. BREED 



PRINTED BY REQUEST. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

HENRY B. ASHMEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, 

Nos. 1102 AND 1101 Sansoji Stueet. 

186L 



sl> 



SERMOK 



As AN EAGLE STIRRETH UP HER NEST, FLUTTERETH OVER HER YOUNG, 
SPREADETH ABROAD HER WINGS, TAKETH THEM, BEARETH THEM ON HER 

wings; so THE Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange 
GOD a\'itii«him. — Deuf. sxxii. 11. 

Abundant evidence appears on the sacred page that the 
writers, many of them at least, were close, if not strictly 
scientific, observers of nature. Of the eagle they frequently 
speak; of his swiftness— " swift as an eagle flieth;" of his 
proverbial keenness of vision— "his eyes behold afar off;" of 
liis graceful wheeling and curving on the wing, vanishing like 
a speck in the blue vault in one direction and reappearing in 
another—" The way of an eagle in the air is too wonderful for 
me, I. know it not;" and withal, of the combined cunning and 
daring Avith which the place for the nest is selected, far from 
the reach of human arm and artillery, and from fear of inva- 
sion by beast or serpent. 

This manifest familiarity with the habits of this bird makes 
it probable that the allusions in our text are based upon actual 
observation. 

The time has come for the eaglets to rise from a condition of 
dependence, to the higher one of self-support. They have long 
enough enjoyed the protection of others, it is time that they 
go fortli and protect themselves. They must not be nestling 
there for ever. They must learn by experiment what poAvcrs 
God has lodged in their cunningly formed wings, those sharp, 
curved claws and beak. The time has come for them to know 



the luxuries of lashing the air with their pinions, of piercing 
the cloud and soaring above the storm ; also AA'hat glorious 
views lie beneath that lofty height, whither human eye can no 
longer follow the receding form. 

So the parent bird stirs up the nest, drives her brood from 
its soft linings out upon the bare rock, perhaps thrusts them 
from the ledge over the abyss, and then dropping, like a meteor, 
she intercepts their fall, catches them upon her wings, and 
bears them to a place of safety. And by such aid and tuition 
the eaglet becomes an eagle, the nestling a builder of nests and 
feeder of young. In a word, the young eagle is thus advanced 
to a higher and nobler state of being. 

Now, in this dying song of Moses, from which our text is 
taken — a song at once commemorative and prophetic — the 
sacred poet seems to see Egypt as the nest, Israel as the nest- 
ling, and Jehovah as the parent eagle. 

That nestling must leave the nest. Israel must leave Egypt, 
else there can be no David, no Solomon, no temple, no Mes- 
siah. Israel must leave Egypt voluntarily. 

To this end there must be a nest-stirring. Nestled there on 
the banks of the Nile, fed by a grateful nation with a bounty, 
the memory of which, in after days, led to bitter, regretful 
complaints, when "Israel Avept again, and said. Who shall 
give us flesh ? We remember the fish that Ave did eat in 
Egypt freely ; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, 
and the onions, and the garlic." Thus provided for and 
happy, what shall send them forth, through a sad severing of 
ties, long, weary marches, woes and privations, to the high 
destiny which awaited them ? Their nest must be stirred ! 
Oppression must come ! The taskmaster must Avield the lash ! 
"Their lives must be made bitter Avith hard bondage in mortar 
and brick, and in all manner of service in the field." Their 
new-born babes must be strangled or cast into the Nile, Thus 
was their nest stirred up ; and the reluctant eaglets, thrust from 
the rock-ledge, caught on Jehovah's Avings, and borne in a 
mighty flight to their new nest among the mountains of Judea. 

Here, then, Ave haA-e an illustration of that style of providen- 



-5^ 



tial, dealing whereby the pupil is advanced through pain, and 
it may be through blood, from one stage of existence to a 
higher and a nobler. It is that kind of discipline in which the 
sharp spur is applied to thx'ust its object onward to and through 
another stage of development. Thus it is that eaglets become 
eagles." Thus Israel, an insignificant fragment of the Egyptian 
nation, becomes the Israel of David and Solomon and Jesus. 

This principle of Providential dealing is often illustrated in 
the case of families and individuals, in both their temporal and 
spiritual experience. 

But the figure, as employed by Moses in the text, points 
directly and immediately to a national nest-stirring ; to the 
transfer of Israel from Egypt to Canaan, and the means and 
instrumentalities of that transfer. Between two millions and 
three millions of souls are to exchange their homes upon the 
green Nile-banks for new homes in aland flowing with milk 
and honey. 

And, brethren, we need not say that we here, to our amaze- 
ment, found ourselves in the midst of a great national move- 
ment — a movement felt and participated in by every one of our 
thirty millions of people. Every family is stirred to its centre. 
Significant badges glisten and flutter from the arms and bo- 
soms of even the little ones. The air is alive with banners, 
and every bosom and every brain palpitates with life. Through 
every brain thoughts roll, billow upon billow, in restless suc- 
cession. Through every bosom, sentiment, emotion, high pas- 
sion surges. Every lieart throbs as it never throbbed ; every 
eye kindles as it never kindled. And of course the tongue is 
not silent. Torrents of words roll out upon the air — some de- 
sponding, some exulting — some despairing, some full of hope — 
some very sad, some very cheerful — some of high daring, some 
proud and boastful, some fierce and revengeful. 

Nor is this all. Thought and passion have emerged into 
action — resolute, self-sacrificing, tremendous action. Tlic hus- 
bandman has left his plough in the unfinished furrow; the 
fisherman has left unmendcd nets upon the shore ; the smith 
has dropped his hammer and the carpenter his plane ; the 



6 

clerk and the mercliant have left the counting-room, and the 
man of wealth his parlor ; and the highways are bristling with 
bayonets, and thundering trains filled with men — laden, not 
watli heavy orders for merchandise, but with heavy knapsacka 
and cartridge boxes. 

The midnight ear is startled with the sound of the I'olling 
drum ; quiet villages are converted into camps ; the very citizen 
upon the street walks with a martial air, and beats the pave- 
ment with a martial tread ; and the press and the telegraph 
palpitate with the excited utterances of the hour. 

If, then, there ever was a movement among men that was 
national, this is such. We propose now to make this move- 
ment the subject of some reflections ; forewarning you, how- 
ever, that our eye is to be turned less to its secular and politi- 
cal than its moral aspects ; and our remarks will bear less upon 
our active duties as citizens, than upon the hues with which we 
should seek to invest this movement in our apprehensions. — 
the tone of spirit which should characterize us as we go forth 
to meet its demands and responsibilities. 

Living and participating in it as we do, it becomes us, as 
rational beings, to cite this movement before the bar of Reason, 
and interrogate it as to its character and import. Every great 
movement among men has a soul as well as a body, and a pur- 
pose and aim as well as a soul. And let no one think of, or 
dread this as an aimless, soulless avalanche. Nay, it has a 
character to unfold — a task to execute. What is that charac- 
ter, and what that task ? 

First and most obviously, Cfod is in it to accomplish some 
special, important end. 

One evidence of this avc find in its suddenness. It has fallen 
upon us like a thunderbolt from a shining sky. So suddenly 
has it burst upon us that, stunned and confounded, we find 
ourselves asking, "Is not this after all a troubled dream?" 
But yesterday, as it were, we were a peaceful, united nation; 
now what — now" where are we ? 

And its arrival is not only sudden but without all connec- 
tion with human dims and furposes. Men had their aims and 



purposes. One man, one party, aimed at one thing, another 
at another ; but this particular juxtaposition of things no one 
aimed at — no one prayed for. 

Then' it was not only sudden and undesigned by man, but 
it ivas anticipated hy none. Who so keen-sighted as even six 
months ago to have shaped his affairs with reference to a con- 
dition of things like that which now presents itself? 

Once more: another evidence of some extraordinary provi- 
dential design therein is found in its disconnection with all 
apparently adequate causes. 

What account can we, as American citizens, give to our- 
selves — what plea can we make at the bar of civilization and 
humanity, in justification of this condition of things? Some 
account, some plea, is imperatively demanded. Those hun- 
dreds of thousands of British poor, who earn their daily bread 
by weaving and spinning our cotton, demand it. Philosophic 
and philanthropic statesmen of the old world, who have been 
watching with intense interest the hopeful political phenomena 
of the new, iterate the demand; and it is reiterated by the 
millions of poor souls who have l)een so long peering westward 
from between the grim bars of foreign despotisms. These all 
cry out together for some rational account of this sudden sub- 
version of the fairest political structure man ever built, God 
ever smiled upon, or human beings ever enjoyed ! 

"What aileth thee, America?" they cry. Have tyran- 
nical rulers worn thee out with oppressions ? Has an intoler- 
able taxation exhausted thy coffers, and driven thy children 
forth begging for bread ? Has a relentless censorship sealed 
up the lips of the press, and has man been compelled to silence 
till resistless thought-currents, dammed up within the bosom, 
have burst all barriers, and rushed forth in all "-tlie pomp and 
circumstance" of civil war? Or has religious freedom been 
invaded? Has some imperious Ne])uchadncz^ar set up' an 
image in the plain of Dura, and heated tlie fiery furnace for 
all who refuse to bow the knee ? 

Brethren, how, in the name of reason and humanity, can we 
answer these questions ? Humanly speaking, a more utterly 



causeless national convulsion has never been witnessed under 
the sun. 

Yes, God is in this movement. Not that man is not in it 
too — in it to his condemnation — in it to his sorrow ! But God 
is suffering man to do apparently causeless and really irra- 
tional things, that out of it all, " He, who doeth according to his 
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the 
earth," may bring his own appointed results. At what results 
is Divine Providence aiming? Is there any divination by 
which we can reach the import and object of this movement ? 

To this question three different replies may be suggested. 
First, it is final and destructive. Second, it is chiefly a sore, 
well-merited chastisement for national shortcomings and trans- 
gressions. Thirdly, it is a great national nest-stirring, through 
the dust, smoke, confusion and agonies of which God is lead- 
ing our nation to noble service, to better days, and to brighter 
skies. To this last view we shall cling till driven from it by 
bitter, disappointing experience. 

Many considerations forbid our adopting the first and most 
dismal of all, viz., that we are now in the midst of the throes 
of national death. 

We have feared the worst. "W'e have dreaded a national 
overthrow by that direst of all forms of death, universal an- 
archy. For a time it seemed as if the Death-angel had waved 
his fatal wing over the nation's heart, and that a general and 
all-pervading gangrene had set in. One day a finger dropped 
off, the next a hand ; now a foot, then an arm. Single cities 
began to rave of solitary independence. Intelligent and worthy 
citizens of Pennsylvania stood ready to pledge their lives and 
fortunes to the work of erecting our noble commonwealth into 
an independent republic. But that day is gone by. That 
process has reached its limit. The heart of the nation, quick- 
ened once more after the paralysis of the hour, beats still that 
the deaf may liear it ! 

But now may not death be staring us in the face in another 
form? Is not God, in rebuke for our unfaithfulness and in 
punishment for our sins, suftVring us to fall upon one another. 



9 

that, like the -wretched Midianites at the crash of Gideon's 
pitchers, and shout of his voices and bLaze of his lamps, we 
also may be "set every man against his brother" to mutual 
extermination ? 

Beloved hearers, without claim either to inspiration or ex- 
traordinary sagacity, we answer emphatically and confidently, 
No ! It is out of all historic analogy that a nation endowed 
and accoutred as is ours be smitten with the leprosy of death 
in the very morning of its days. And it is equally foreign to 
the prevailing tone of present providential dealings in the world. 
While God is blowing the resurrection trumpet over long- 
buried Italy, who can think that he is giving commission to 
the pale horse and his rider to make our land a land of silence 
and desolation? God is now marshalling his armies to fight 
great battles for the Truth ; and think you he will just now 
disband one of the strongest and best appointed of them all ? 

No ! We shall live and not die ! We do not feel like dying. 
There is no cold sweat upon the brow, no death-chill on the 
form. On the contrary, there never was a finer flush on the 
national check — never a finer gleam in the national eye. Our 
national government is stronger this hour than it has been for 
twenty years — strong in a new consciousness of strength ! 
The despatches which have just left our shores for European 
courts will convey to them the intelligence that, should our 
nation be divided to-morrow, there lies north of the dividing 
line a nation which, for cause seen and appreciated, can sud- 
denly bury bitter partisan feuds, fling to the winds party 
names and partisan issues, and, in two weeks' time, precipitate 
a hundred thousand armed men into the field, and double that 
number in two weeks more, if the call demand ; a nation 
that, in two weeks' time, can, in individual donations, lay some 
thirty millions of dollars on the altar of patriotism ; a nation 
abounding in mothers, who bring an only son to the camp, and 
leave him there witli mino;lcd benedictions and regrets that tlie 
number was not ten instead of one ! 

Certainly this looks very little like dying. And however 
events may shape themselves under the moulding hand of 



10 

Almighty God, let every one of us place fears of national 
overthrow among the very remotest of our apprehensions. 

The second interpretation of this posture of affairs regards 
it as chiefly a chastisement for national sins. We have sinned 
— sinned against God and against man. We have sinned by 
pride and profanity, drunkenness and licentiousness, sabbath- 
breaking and mammon-worship. And no one can doubt that 
this visitation is of the nature of a scourge. This is involved 
in the very idea of a nest-stirring. It was so with Israel. 
Untold calamities came upon that nation in connection with 
their transfer from the Nile to the Jordan. The interveninir 
pathway was marked by a line of more than six hundred 
thousand graves ! 

But we still cling to the full idea of our text in interpreting 
this providential dispensation, and this couples chastisement 
with advance ; making chastisement the instrument and means 
of advance. God is hereby administering to this nation an 
ajfflictive disciplinary baptism in the cloud and in the sea, for 
a fresh entrance upon the historic career. This is a great 
national nest-stirring, preparatory to a flight to a better land, 
in which the eaglet is to become an eagle ; in which America 
the less is to become America the greater. 

What nation, from Rome to ours, ever reached the acme of 
its greatness and power Avithout the dread tuition of internal 
convulsion ? It was through many such bloody scourgings that 
the British constitution reached its present pitch of perfection, 
and the British empire its present pitch of power. 

The iron, unscrupulous reign of Henry the Seventh ; the 
tyrannies of the carnal, disgusting Henry the Eighth ; the 
crimson rule of the Bloody Mary ; the imbecilities and t3''ran- 
nies of the Stuarts, interrupted by the glorious Cromwellian 
parenthesis, and terminated by the glorious Revolution, all 
attended with blood and sorrow, wrote each one of them some 
clause in the Britisli constitution, some word on the British 
heart, that has since been in their influence "like rain upon 
the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth." 

And this hour pf our surprise and anguish is a pen in the 



11 

hand of God to write upon our hearts, our nation, our consti- 
tution, some sentence, some paragraph, which nothing but just 
such a convulsion could write, and which, unwritten, would 
leave our national career a fragment or a failure ! 

AVho can rise from the contemplation of the origin and 
growth of our nation, the prodigality of its resources, the 
splendor of its national equipments, without the deep convic- 
tion that it has been ushered upon the stage to act no second- 
ary part in the great drama ? And who can collate our poli- 
tical career and these endowments, and not feel that as yet we 
have rendered the world no adequate service ? 

Brethren, have these infinite resources, this best of consti- 
tutions, this imperial expanse of territory, this unfettered fi-ee- 
dom of thought and speech, been entrusted to us merely that 
we may unblushingly show in the eyes of a world that blushes 
for us, how execrably corrupt municipal governments, legisla- 
tures, and national administrations can become, and how we can 
elect a President to be devoured before our eyes by hordes of 
of hungry office-seekers ? God forbid ! 

No: the time has come for a new baptism, in distress, in 
tears, it may be in blood — it may be in one another's blood. 
The sea ^t which we are to receive this baptism may be one 
whose billows are hunger and thirst and nakedness, weeping 
and wailing and woe. It may be a trial which shall leave 
desolate fields and green graveyards. 

But let no one suggest that this accompanying anguish fore- 
stalls our idea of beneficent results ! No ! In all afflictive 
providences, which arc not strictly penal, but rather discipli- 
nary in their nature, whether they be individual orjiational, 
you may gauge the magnitude of the beneficent result by the 
intensity of the antecedent and instrumental sorrow. God is 
a God of mercy and love. lie never afflicts willingly, nor 
grieves the children of men. He can tell you more than you 
ever knew or dreamed of, the true significance of the tear on 
the cheek or sigh in the bosom ; and human sorrows are too 
costly to be wasted. These are pearls that he never casts 



12 

before s^vine. And every such path that he sows with these 
jewels, leads to rewards that are abundantly compensatory. 

Fully assured, then, that God is in the vessel, — that his 
stronsr hand holds the helm, and his own streamer floats from 
the mast-peak, we may humbly and confidingly leave definite 
results to him. Whether there are to be battles, and how 
many, — whether the struggle is to be brief or protracted, and 
into what particular mould events are ultimately to be cast, 
are matters which God will determine ; and the results, what- 
ever they may be, we all are, or should be Avilling to accept at 
his hands. 

In conclusion, -let us find in this view of the movement 
which is upon and around us, the tone of spirit which should 
characterize us during these eventful times. Inasmuch as this 
is a great National Nest-stirring under the hand of God, on the 
one hand sorely afflictive, and on the other disciplinary and 
preparatory to a higher and more efficient service, let us go 
forth to it in solemn seriousness, and also with courage and 
hope ! 

In the name of pity and me^cy let everything like levity be 
excluded from our thoughts and utterances ! He must be at 
once sightless and heartless who can either fail to see, or see- 
ing fail to appreciate, and respect the tide of anguish which 
must roll along the channel of this movement. The fact that 
the war, if war come, must come in that most afflictive and 
exhaustive of all forms, civil war ; the distressing fact that 
the combatants are children of the same nation, who in other 
days have shouted together under the same flag, exulted to- 
gether over the same historic story, and in view of the same 
enchanting prospects ; that theofficers who give the command 
on opposing sides, were taught the mysteries of the sangui- 
nary art by the same teachers, in the same academy, where 
were formed those precious and unique ties of friendship which 
fellow students only know ; the heartrending fact, that the line 
of division runs through households, separating brother from 
sister, mother from son, acquaintance from acquaintance, all 
unite to brand all levity as criminal and heartless ! 



14 

will have drunk up all our strength. There is something else 
for men to do in such an hour than merely to brood over ills, 
heap loads upon the spirits, and make the gloom deeper by 
desponding, despairing words, and by ever-deepening sad- 
ness of brow ! 

How often did God rebuke Israel for such conduct during 
the flight by which he bore them to their promised land ? On 
the Red Sea-shore, "Israel cried out unto the Lord." And 
they said to Moses, " Because there were no graves in Egypt, 
hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness ? And the 
Lord said unto Moses wherefore criest thou unto me ? Speak 
unto the children of Israel that they go forward.'' 

And may we not, and must we not, take this providence as 
a great Nest-stirring in which Jehovah is bearing us on eagles 
wings to a better land? Assured of this, is there nothing in 
its spirit and aim, nothing even in its concomitants and already 
realized results, to forbid excess of gloomy apprehension and 
minister refreshment and relief to the spirit ? 

We live in extraordinary times. Thought, passion, plays 
not in holiday ripples, but heaves in billows ! A day is crowd- 
ed into an hour, a week into a day, a month into a week! 
This day forms one of the hinges of history. It is a day in 
which " the bell of time strikes another hour !" It is the hour 
of a Red Sea passage, of a Jordan passage. Some will be 
drowned in the transit, but the great host will reach the op- 
posite shore, and there sing with Moses and Miriam the song 
of thanksgiving ! It is an hour instinct with vast ideas, preg- 
nant with vast issues. This movement is urged on by mighty 
impulses, and its progress is attended with almost superhuman 
self-sacrifices, with unprecedented and unbounded liberalities, 
with marvellous display of kind humanities, and itsultim; '-» aim 
is gloriously beneficent ! 

It were folly to deny that some are hereby plunged into 
swarms of new, and doubtless in many instances fatal tempta- 
tions, but even to this is there no compensatory good ? Is it 
nothing that a people reproached the world over as Mammon 
worshippers, suddenly melt down their Idol, cast it into coin, 



1 o 

Then these invaded firesides, these circles in our midst, 
which kneeling this morning around the family altar, missed 
those golden links ; those breakfast tables, whose cheer was 
dampened by the presence of the vacant chair ; the parting 
tears that gushed over the young man's neck, the yearnings 
of parents and sisters hearts after the youth in camp, fort or 
field, all these administer a stinging rebuke to levity ! And 
the inevitable miseries and demoralizations of war, the expo- 
sures to temptations, profanity, drunkenness, Sabbath-break- 
ing, licentiousness, forbid it ! 

Besides, the prostration of business, the arrest laid upon 
commerce, the bankruptcies, the closed stores, and the inci- 
dent domestic, inquietude and distress, condemn and forbid it ! 

Let all look upon and speak of the momentous work before 
us, with the solemn seriousness of men who have hearts to feel 
for the woes of their brethren. 

But on the other h^nd, let us not forget that there is 
another side to this subject ! Let us not overlook the privi- 
lege and duty, even with the tears on our cheeks, of looking 
out upon that angry sky courageously, hopefully ! And to 
this end, it is imperative upon us not to sufi"er our attention to 
be engrossed, nor our minds to be, as it were, fascinated by 
the dark spirits that may hover around our tents. It is 
the duty of every one, in the spirit of a manly heroism, to 
avert the eye from the menacing sword, which gleams in hand, 
to the star of hope which reposes on the brow of this dispen- 
sation ! 

We are on shipboard, on a dangerous coast. The tempest 
howls through the rigging, angry clouds scud, "lightening 
lances" are driven across the sky. Rock and shoals are near. 
One man has fallen from the yards, another has been swept 
from the decks, a fresh force has just been sent to man the 
helm ! Is it now Avise or right for us, in huddled groups, in 
cabin or on deck, to think of nothing, and talk of nothing but 
actual ills, and menacing disasters ? God forbid ! Such a 
course is wrong, it is demoralizing ! Ere long the cry will 
come for us to man the pumps, and then fear and despondency 



15 



and pour it out like water in voluntary contributions ? Notk- 
in. that a whole nation sneered at so long as a mere mass of 
sh°ewd bargain-makers ean suddenly exehange the mmu^^ o 
commerce :nd trade for thoughts and interests of nafonal 
ma<rr=-ide ? Nothing that multitudes who have hitherto gro- 
veUed in the kennels of society, and all their lives been a re- 
proach to cities and a terror to good citizens have found place 
I their souls for at least one high noble idea, that of their 
country an.l their national flag ! Can this occupancy of such 
minds'with such an idea, for an hour or a month harm, may ,t 

not do good ? , 

It is ^vrong, it is ungrateful, it is demoralizing, to throw our- 
selves upon the ground and seek to give up the ghost, because 
this great shadow has fallen upon our national pathway 1 or 
seventy years we have enjoyed a prosperity unequalled in the 
history of nations. Meanwhile every nation in Europe 'has 
been smitten with convulsion or revolution. Through what 
scenes has France passed? Once the victim of an outburst 
from the pit that filled the world with horror; twice overrun 
by foreign troops, and even now her all, apparently suspended 
upon the life of one man; .ne Austrian emperor dethroned 
and his successor terrified into a show of reform ; and even 
Britain's noble Queen driven by violence or fear from Buck- 
ingham Palace to the Isle of Wight. And now our turn is 
But the cloud is "big with mercies and will break 



come. 



with blessings on our head." 

Let us then, dear brethren, write courage and HOPE upon 
our banner, and then nail that banner to the mast ! 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



012 026 277 4 




HBRARY OF CONGRESS 



012 026 277 4 # 



HoUinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



